Chris Dunk

What equality, if any, is a justified goal of social and political organisation?

Equality of opportunity is often thought to be a fairly uncontroversial aspect of equality yet much of the reasoning behind the conventional conception of equality of opportunity seems to imply that we should go further, and move into more radical luck egalitarianism. However, this move often seems intuitively unpalatable, and almost entirely impractical it also has a number of serious objections to the results it produces. In this essay I intend to focus largely on equality of opportunity, and to discuss why we might believe equality to be desirable, either intrinsically or instrumentally, why we might object to the more radical claims of equality of opportunity, and why Rawls original position and the democratic equality outlined by Anderson give us convincing methods of weighting equality against other values such as individual liberty and utility. Minimal equality of opportunity, as defined by Swift, is the equality of opportunity where individuals are allowed the advantages accrued through social position or ability, but that their competition in society should otherwise be a direct comparison of competence in a given role, independent of race, or gender, or any other non-meritocratic factors. More conventional equality of opportunity could be thought of as more than simply comparison of relative competences; the individuals concerned must have an equal chance to acquire said competences in the first place. Finally, a radical conception of equality of opportunity might argue that the conventional conception does not go far enough it eliminates those inequalities in gaining competences from position of ones birth, but it fails to account for the fact that some individuals are better at gaining said competences simply because they are born with greater natural ability. Thus a radical equality of opportunity almost necessitates a redistribution of resources to help those who were born in less favourable positions and with lesser abilities. Before going on to explain why we might want to hold to these different concepts of equality, it seems most logical to explain why we might want equality at all as a goal of social and political organisation. We might believe that equality is intrinsically valuable, or we might believe that it has value instrumentally, as a result of the benefits it brings to a society. Obviously then in the latter case it could not possibly be the end goal of social and political organisation; merely one on the way to achieving further aims. Why might equality be considered intrinsically desirable? Nagel points out that it is difficult to propose that equality is intrinsically desirable without begging the question one can do little other than argue that equality seems intuitively appealing, which might seem particularly weak to someone who had not lived their entire life in a society where the concept of equality as desirable was almost universally accepted. Nagel argues that one might justify equality intrinsically on the grounds of utility that many individuals have diminishing marginal returns on the utility they gain from opportunities, and the resources that enable them to achieve those opportunities, so the most utilitarian thing to do is to attempt equality across society. This approach suffers from a number of criticisms

Chris Dunk not least that it does not value equality intrinsically, at least not in my opinion; it merely values equality so long as it produces the best utilitarian outcome; if the assumptions underpinning the result were found to be wrong, then equality would no longer be valued. Thus, it seems, equality can hardly be valued for its own sake in this explanation. The utilitarian approach also suffers from the pleasure wizard/misery pit criticism. If we assume that one individual has either constant returns or simply lessrapidly-diminishing returns to utility from being given resources or opportunities, then it would make sense to make available far greater opportunities and resources to develop competence to him or her than to other people. Similarly, if someone is a misery pit i.e. they have far lower returns from a given amount of resources then it makes sense to allocate a smaller share of resources to them to ensure balanced marginal utilities. Thus not only does utilitarianism not imply intrinsically valuable equality, but it does not necessarily imply equality at all. Why, or how, might equality be justified instrumentally? It might be argued that high levels of inequality are bad for feelings of fraternity in a society. If one individual clearly feels inferior or is treated as inferior to another, then one might argue from both communitarian and individualistic perspectives that this forms an argument against inequality. From a communitarian perspective, this can reduce the effective functioning of society away from the social and political ideal. From an individual perspective, one might argue that individuals have a core of rights, one of which grants them the right to self-respect. One might argue that severely constrained opportunities for a given member of a society compared to another would make any reasonable person feel inferior, and thus impact upon their self-respect. One might also approach equality from another perspective that a certain amount of equality is necessary to alleviate suffering. In other words, those at the bottom of society should be equal insofar as they have the same chance to provide for themselves economically, and to participate in the functioning of society. In a similar vein, one might argue that those at the top of the hierarchy in society should be prevented from accruing too many resources, lest they have opportunity to influence various social and political processes (that should be fair) to be manifestly not so. For example, those who control vast sums of money and media networks exercise far more control over the political agenda than does the average citizen of a society. Thus, equality is beneficial in that it ensures that processes within society that should be fair namely, those over which every citizen should exert an equal say remain so. As such, there are a variety of reasons why equality might be a justified goal of social and political organisation, if not an ultimate goal. The question now is how far these reasons hold, and whether they lead us to a minimal or more extensive form of equality. A problem that continually arises in discussion of equality of any form is how one should balance the demands of equality with the demands of other desirable values, such as utility and liberty. For example, equality of opportunity might demand that we move from a society where all individuals had a decent secondary education, but half of the population also had a university education, to one where no-one went to university. This fairly controversial result can be acquired under the conventional idea of equality, pursued to the exclusion of other values simply because, in

Chris Dunk the first instance, there is a disparity in the ability of the individuals to acquire the relevant competences based on whether or not they go to university. Obviously, we would protest this result on the grounds of utility and liberty the society has been levelled-down and has lost utility to no separate gain, and the freedom of the individuals to be able to go to university has also been impacted. One might take an intuitionist approach to weigh the various values involved, and then simply decide that whatever feels right is the correct conclusion, but this risks producing results that are inconsistent across both time and persons. Thus, a decision-making process like Rawls original position becomes useful. The factors put into the original position one of which is complete, radical equality can then be used to arbitrate between factors in a more methodical way. Responding to the example, one might argue that the original position setup would favour the former society because- although it is less equal the university students might improve the society sufficiently that the absolute gain for those who do not go to university outweighs the positional loss from competing with university graduates for opportunities in society. Conventional equality of opportunity does seem to slide into more radical forms both position in society and natural ability seem to be accidents of birth. One might argue that ability is often closely tied to effort, and that those with ability have often made a series of choices that enhance, or even create, their ability and thus there is a difference between social position and natural ability. Somewhat inevitably, radical egalitarians reply that the surroundings of an individual when growing up are the significant factor in determining how well that person can apply themselves, concentrate, and exert effort, and so even that aspect of a person is randomly determined and should be subject to egalitarian redistribution. Conversely, those who are lazy have been conditioned by the circumstances of their childhood to be so, and thus should not be punished by society for factors beyond their control. This opens the conception up to the lazy surfers counterargument that those who choose not to work, and spend all their time surfing and enjoying themselves should nonetheless be supported by the state (and those who work hard), because the surfers have a genetic and environmentally created predisposition to bum around. Obviously, this seems hugely unjust the question is whether it is unequal. Similarly, the luck egalitarian might argue that someone who has suffered in terms of their resources, through choices that they have made in which they have simply been unlucky, should not necessarily be helped by the state. This is because the reasoning for helping those with less ability or position is dependent on their lack of choice in the matter; so the position altogether neglects those whose choices, although they may have been prudent, led them to a position of great inequality in society through sheer misfortune. Thus the radical conception of equality seems to be extremely weak to criticism. Can equality of opportunity be salvaged? Anderson argues for a narrower approach to those goods in which we should be equal almost a conception akin to Rawls primary goods. Anderson argues that the three aspects of individual functioning for which equality is necessary are as a human being, as a participant in a system of cooperative production (ie the economy), and as a citizen of a democratic state. These provide a minimal basis of equality for society beyond which the concerns of liberty

Chris Dunk and utility could arguably be paramount. The resources necessary for functioning as a human being are those for biological survival, but also access to the basic conditions of human agency essentially the knowledge, confidence and ability to think and act freely. The requirements to be economically equal recognise the need for fair access to the market and means of developing relevant skills, and political equality requires access to equality of speech, as well as access to the goods and relationships of civil society. Andersons emphasis is that her notion of democratic equality guarantees effective access to levels of functioning only sufficient to stand as an equal in society which obviously, is not the same as effective access to equal levels of functioning. This clearly breaks the links between conventional and radical conceptions of equality of opportunity, by arguing that in the important dimensions of equality ability matters very little; the bases of Andersons notion of equality are accessible by all people, regardless of ability. Furthermore, the notion also breaks the link between equality of opportunity and complete equality of distribution, because it introduces the idea that a minimum level of resources can ensure positional equality between members in these arenas. The area where this is perhaps most questionable is that of the political sphere the idea that there is a minimum level of resources that ensure that Rupert Murdoch and I are equal in our influence on the political system is one that seems to struggle somewhat. Andersons conception seems only to recognise political power in a narrow sense: through the vote, or our opportunity to go and speak in a public place. Perhaps a counterargument is that one must take into account the level of influence across a lifetime; and that, in fact, I have many of the same resources available to me now the same opportunity to influence the political process that Murdoch did at this point in his life. Thus, in that regard in the sense of equality of opportunity the conception can possibly stand. When using Andersons conception of democratic equality, we seem to return to something akin to the conventional notion of equality of opportunity outlined initially, with the important difference that everyone should have access to a basic level of resources to have access to the same level of competence, or functioning rather than everyone should have access to the same level of resources to access the same level of competence. Thus inequalities of resource can be compatible with equality of opportunity. Although one might compare the value of further, possibly resource-based, inequality through devices such as Rawls original position, Andersons democratic equality simply provides a base level of equality beyond which we can make judgements based on liberty or utility. This intuitively appeals liberty itself requires this interaction as equals, and utility comes across as too purely mechanical if at least basic requirements of equality and liberty are not acknowledged. Thus Andersons democratic equality seems a decent starting point as a goal for social and political organisation, compatible with both our intuitions and other notions, such as liberty, which are prized in the organisation of a society.